Happily Ever After This Christmas

by C. K. Martin

  ‘Go and get ready for bed,’ she called out to Emily, who was happily chatting away to herself now in the other room. The poor kid was so excited but Kayleigh had spotted her eyes closing on the drive home. It was way past her usual bedtime, but seeing Santa had got her too wired to sleep. It would take a good story tonight to get her to nod off and the morning would bring with it the consequences.

  Kayleigh walked through to the kitchen. She paused for a second, the prospect of a glass of wine to take the edge off far more tempting than she would like it to be. No, that would have to wait. Another cup of tea was what she needed to make herself feel warm again. She opened the cupboard and looked at her selection. Chamomile was just what she needed. She hated the taste of it, but it did have a relaxing effect. She’d learned to get used to the initial unpleasantness over the years if it meant her shoulders moved a little lower than her earlobes.

  As she waited for the kettle to boil, she noticed the council paperwork still sitting on the work surface. That afternoon, when passing trade began to pick up again as parents collected their children from school, Kayleigh had finally admitted defeat and turned her attention back to serving customers. She had rung every single person in the book and no one could do what she wanted in the right time or for the right price. She had done her best, but every single avenue had been exhausted. Even Rob had run out of people to ask.

  A thud above made her freeze for a second, but then she heard Emily moving around and laughing. She breathed a sigh of relief, nursing the drink close to her chest. She was going to need every single ounce of calm it could offer at this rate.

  She looked at the paperwork again, seeing where Jo’s scrawl had signed the deal at the bottom of the page. The anger flared briefly, but was muted by the events of the evening. She was still livid, furious that the world would do this to her. But it was also hard to reconcile the box-ticking, red-tape-conforming council official who had been in her shop with the woman she had seen out on the streets tonight. There had been a real person underneath the sharp suit after all, it seemed. One that, for all the denial she had given Rob, was indeed an attractive woman. Her type, she supposed, if she thought about it too much. Could you have a type when you had only ever dated one woman before? Those were the kind of questions people would normally be asking before now. They’d not even crossed her mind for three years or more.

  Jo’s father had been a hoot too. Emily had continued talking about him throughout the evening. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a connection between a young and old soul happen so instantaneously before. But if it made the use of the wheelchair a more agreeable option when the circumstances dictated, then Kayleigh was more than happy for Emily to be won round by him. He must have been quite the charmer in his youth.

  Could Jo be the same? She’d not really given her much chance to show it. If she would even be interested at all. She only had Rob’s reassurances on that front and how much could you trust a man’s opinion on that? Still, she thought there had been a connection there, of sorts, when her guard had been down. It was a shame that the two of them were unlikely to meet again. Or that she would be able to forgive her any time soon. Beneath the admission that the other woman was attractive, the anger still simmered at the consequences of her actions. It messed with her head, but it was unlikely she would be able to change the way she felt.

  Gone were the days when life could be simple. Uncomplicated by responsibilities or the weight of her own fragile emotions. She hadn’t even realised it at the time, but she sure as hell missed it now.

  Another bump from upstairs and she realised she had allowed bedtime to be delayed for long enough already. Her ten minutes of peace came at a significant cost in the morning. She took another sip of tea and placed the mug down next to the paperwork. It would still be there when she got back, that bittersweet reminder.

  Determined to be stern, she trudged up the stairs to Emily’s bedroom. All fierceness dissolved at the sight of Emily in a state of strange undress, having apparently decided tonight was the night to mix-and-match her pyjamas. A pink and green ensemble that would either fail or be a massive success in the fashion world, depending on which year it was. It offended Kayleigh’s eyes. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘I’m a superhero princess.’ Emily sat on the bed with her hands on her hips, as if it was completely obvious.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘This is my princess part,’ she pointed at the pink top, ‘and this is my superhero part.’ The green pyjamas were more leprechaun than superhero, but Kayleigh let it slide.

  ‘Well, Little Miss Superhero Princess, I think it’s time you went to sleep.’

  ‘Story first.’

  ‘Of course. What would you like? It has to be a short one. It’s long past your bed time and there’s still school tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s not proper lessons. Mozzi said so.’

  ‘And I suppose you think Mozzi knows everything, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t always. So if I say you have to do something, then you have to do it, even if she says you don’t have to.’

  ‘But Mozzi—’

  ‘No buts. Those are the rules. And tomorrow you have a play to practice. That will be hard work. I don’t want my little sheep falling asleep on the stage.’

  ‘I won’t.’ A slight quiver of the lower lip was a sure giveaway that Kayleigh was doing the right thing by sticking to her guns. Emily was overtired and all it would take was the slightest, most innocuous thing to tip her over into a full scale meltdown.

  ‘Good. Can I check your leg before we read please?’

  ‘Okay.’ Emily presented it to her to look at. Each new pair of pyjamas went through the exact same process. Kayleigh waited until Emily went to bed and then cut down the right leg, making it the same length as her limb. Then she would painstakingly sew a new hem to make it look the same as the other one. The first time she had done it, several hours had gone by before she was satisfied with the result. It had still looked terrible; uneven and badly sewn. She had grown better over the years, doing it now without really thinking, watching a TV show at the same time.

  The sore, slightly inflamed patch that she had spotted a week ago was now in a holding pattern. Slightly worse at the end of each day, but by the morning it had calmed down considerably. Kayleigh’s fear was that after a night of stubbornness out in the cold, it would be back to where it had started. By some miracle, it didn’t look any worse than normal. ‘How does it feel? Sore? Itchy?’

  ‘Okay,’ Emily shrugged. That was good. As long as there was no pain, they could continue to manage it.

  ‘Good. Now you think about which book you would like us to read while I just rub a bit of cream on it.’ Kayleigh went to the bathroom to fetch the tube, hoping that Emily wouldn’t choose anything too emotionally traumatic tonight. Until she had come into her care, Kayleigh hadn’t realised how much sheer horror was buried in children’s fairy tales. There was always evil lurking around every corner and, far too frequently for her taste, death. It was an area of discussion that always felt like she was skating on thin ice but tonight, with the ghost of her sister watching over them, it would be too much to handle.

  She was relieved when she returned to the room and saw that Emily had already made her choice. It was an old book, battered around the edges from frequent use. But it was also short. That got bonus points. That Emily was silently mouthing along to the words as she turned the page was also a good sign. Not that she was reading them properly quite yet. But knowing them well enough to give the appearance of reading meant that she could make a start on her own while Kayleigh began to gentle massage her swollen limb. Despite Emily’s reassurances, it felt hot to the touch. Kayleigh had to remind herself that it was completely normal. It was not a sign of septicaemia. There would be no midnight runs to the hospital tonight.

  ‘Aunty Webby?’

  ‘Yes Sweetheart.’

  ‘When is Santa comi
ng?’

  ‘Next week. And only if you’ve been good remember.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll know how to find me?’

  ‘I would imagine so.’ Kayleigh paused in her massaging to look up. Emily’s face was pulled into a tight little worried frown. ‘Why do you think he wouldn’t?’

  ‘Because this is your house.’

  ‘I’m too big for Santa to come to me. Don’t worry, he won’t be bringing me presents instead.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Emily frowned harder, as if that was the most stupid thing she had ever heard.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘This is your house. But Mozzi said that Santa had our names on a list.’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘But you have a different last name to me. What if he can’t find me?’ The quiver that had been so obvious before now threatened to spill over. Such an innocent but genuine fear that felt like a stab to her chest.

  ‘He knows everything Sweetheart. I promise you, he’ll know where to find you.’

  ‘But what if he doesn’t?’

  ‘He will.’ Kayleigh moved up the bed to sit next to Emily, pulling her into her arms. From across the room, the light glinted on the picture frame, her sister’s face smiling at them both. How could it even be? This time, three years ago, she had just heard the news. The clock had frozen for her that night. The night that had made the two of them into a little family of their own. Now the differences from a normal family were starting to make sense to Emily in a way they never had before.

  Promises were useless, Kayleigh knew that. Even ones she would once have made with certainty. Fate could deal a single cruel blow at any moment it wished, leaving everyone stunned and dazed in its wake. ‘I promise you, he has found you here every year since you came to live with me and he will this year too. It doesn’t matter what our names are.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Emily stuttered through the tears she was trying to stop, ‘maybe I should have the same last name as you now. Now that I live with you.’

  Kayleigh’s heart splintered into a thousand tiny pieces, each too small to ever be put back together properly again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  For the first few weeks after she moved back, Jo had found herself compelled to stay in the same room as her father each evening. No matter how tired she was, she had refused to go to bed until he was ready to do so himself. With good reason. For that first month, he was still going to sleep upstairs. Despite his need for the wheelchair most of the time, he could still technically walk. Which meant he could get himself upstairs and into the bedroom he had slept in for over forty years.

  Theoretically.

  The first time Jo had watched him make the journey, she thought the panic and fear would give her a heart attack. Each step was made with such extreme, slow deliberation that it reminded of her of a man nearing the summit of a mountain, body physically drained and oxygen levels low. Every few steps he wavered, unable to find his centre of gravity and she had been certain that it would be the moment when he toppled backwards completely. She envisaged them both lying at the bottom of the stairs in a tangled mess, his hip re-broken and her body with brand new fractures.

  After a few weeks, the constant terror was too much for her. The downstairs toilet her mother had installed when they both retired had turned out to be a godsend. At the time Jo hadn’t really wanted to hear about how it was sometimes difficult to get in from the garden in time once you reached their age, but the forethought was something she would kiss her for now if she were still around. Its presence got her father through the days, but it didn’t take away that fear of the wooden mountain each night.

  The district nurse had agreed with her assessment. Her father hadn’t. He had used a few choice words that she had never heard him say before, to express said disagreement. The whole meeting had been an uncomfortable one. Jo wasn’t sure what the policy was for patients who verbally abused people these days, but the nurse shrugged it off with better grace than she would have managed. It was agreed. The dining room at the back of the house would be converted into a bedroom for her father. Because of his protests, they had stopped at getting him a hospital-style bed in there. Apparently, the threat of him killing himself because ‘he might as well be dead if they were going to treat him as if he was dying’ had been enough to convince them both.

  The good news was, he had settled into the new routine soon enough. Which meant, thankfully, Jo could get the rest she needed. Tonight had been interesting, but she was ready to call it a day. Once the excitement of the procession had worn off, the reality of fighting her way through the crowds with the wheelchair to get back to the car had taken its toll. People were such rude arseholes. That was what this whole experience with her dad had taught her. ‘Do you need anything?’ she asked, as he settled down into his chair.

  ‘No. I’m just going to try to crack the crossword and then I’ll be off to bed myself. Twenty-one down is on the tip of my tongue.’

  ‘I’m going to make a cup of tea to take up with me. Do you want one?’

  ‘Yes, please, if you’re making one. Maybe with a bit of brandy in it?’

  ‘Are you allowed brandy in it with your medication?’

  ‘Probably not. But if you do everything the doctors tell you to then you have no life at all. Just a tot. Not too much. But enough that I can taste it,’ he called after her, as she walked through to the kitchen.

  As the kettle boiled she leaned against the work surface and thought about the evening. Her mind relived the conversations, most of them unexpected. Emily was adorable and so was her aunt. Jo thought it might be the first time she had seen Kayleigh smile since they had met. From the moment Jo had made the announcement of who she was in the bookstore, that smile had disappeared.

  Could Rob be right? Were the two of them really just friends? They had seemed so close, but try as she might, Jo couldn’t come up with a reason why he would lie about something like that. He hadn’t said outright that Kayleigh was a lesbian, but his insinuations weren’t going to win him any subtlety of the year competitions. Jo looked down at herself. Perhaps it was the boots that had been giving off the gay vibes. She’d bought them at Maddy’s suggestion after all…

  The kettle turned off with a loud click, bringing her back into the real world. She made the two cups of tea – decaffeinated, even though her dad swore he could tell the difference until she had started lying to him about it — then added a dash of brandy to his. She was about to screw the cap back on the bottle when she added a generous splash to her own mug as an afterthought. One wouldn’t hurt. The mulled wine had been quite nice after all. This was practically the same thing.

  She carried them through to the living room, where her father still hadn’t found the answer that was on the tip of his tongue. She placed the mug down on his tray and debated asking him what the clue was. No, it was better if she went to bed, rather than get embroiled in a long, drawn-out conversation.

  ‘Thanks Love,’ he said, nodding at the mug. ‘I can smell the brandy from here, so you must have done it right.’

  ‘There’s a little bit in mine too,’ she confessed.

  ‘Good girl. You deserve a treat.’ He looked up at her with a smile. ‘You look happier than you have done for days.’

  ‘I feel it. I think. Mainly I’m just tired.’

  ‘Pushing this old man around can’t be easy on the arms.’

  ‘Or the legs. Bloody cobblestones.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree more. Friend to no one. Look pretty, but the moment you have a wheelchair or a stick they’ll be the death of you.’

  ‘Remind me never to break my leg around here then.’

  ‘I’m glad though.’

  ‘That I haven’t broken my leg?’

  ‘No. Don’t be daft. That you look happy again. I was starting to get worried.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’ Jo shrugged. It was a strange thought. For years she had been so completely independent of her family, need
ing them for neither encouragement or judgement.

  ‘But I do. That’s what parents do, no matter how grown-up their children get. But tonight? I’ve got to say, I’m proud of you.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes. I probably never told you enough. But tonight, I know you did something that most people wouldn’t do. I don’t know many people who wouldn’t justify what they’d had to do or walk away. You’ve made a decision using your conscience and not your bank balance. You’re a rare and special person for that.’

  ‘Not as rare and special as her.’

  ‘Soft spot for her after all then.’

  ‘I never said that!’

  ‘You didn’t have to. I could see it written all over your face the moment you saw her. You lit up like a Christmas tree. Not hers, of course, from what you’ve told me.’

  ‘That was a low blow.’ Jo couldn’t help but smile regardless. ‘She’s out of my league. But if I’ve got a chance to make her feel a bit happier, then I’ll take it. And if not for her, then for Emily.’

  ‘She’s a special woman, I won’t deny that. There aren’t many people who would take on what she has and deal with it with such good grace too. But that doesn’t mean she’s out of your league.’

  ‘You have to say that. You’re my dad.’

  ‘I’ve always been honest with you Jo. About everything. I wouldn’t give you false hope for tomorrow just to make you feel better for today. She’s pretty. Clever. And clearly with a good heart. She’d be good for you. I don’t expect you to spend the rest of your life here looking after me each night.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that. I’m happy to be here.’

  ‘And I’m happy to have you here. But that doesn’t mean I expect it from you.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’ll forgive me this side of Christmas. Maybe not next year either.’